What Camera Should I Buy?

So this is probably the most common thing that people ask for. As for the answer? Well I'm not sure. I guess that there is a simple way to find out and that would be based on type of camera (point-and-shoot, bridge camera or DSLR).

Most of us know what a point-and-shoot camera is and most of us have owned them. I used to have a Casio Exilim which was a great wee thing that went round the world with me and even survived a whole year in Australia. It's about 8 years old now and is currently still going strong in the hands of a relative.

These cameras are now quite decent and there are not much difference between any of them except the usual - price and size. I've also got a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ8 which has since been spuerceeded by the TZ10, TZ20 and TZ30. If you've got slightly bigger pockets (both financially and literally) I would suggest the TX30 as it's not too big but a bit chunkier than most of it's relatives however it's got fantastic zoom and takes brilliant shots. A great thing to take on holiday or a night out I think.

I don't really know that much more about point-and-shoots as I didn't get into photography until I got my first DSLR. So if you were interested in taking photos as a hobby and you want something more substantial than a point-and-shoot then you need to have a serious think about what is best for you.

It comes down to bridge vs DSLR at this point. A bridge camera is something that "bridges" the gap between point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras. They don't have interchangeable lenses (although there is now a range called Micro Four/Thirds which do and and an extra dimension this area of photography).

So what's the point of a bridge camera? I suppose it's a decent things to have if you are not really that interested in changing lenses but want something that takes a better shot than your average point-and-shoot. These don't take quite as good pictures as DSLRs but are very versatile and some of them have tremendous zooms or "super-zooms" which are often better than most high end zoom lenses for DSLR. The quality of the picture might not be outstanding but if you were going on a safari, for example, and you didn't know much about photography then something like this would be ideal.

These cameras fall down in two area. Firstly, they are not very good in the dark. They are designed to do so many things that they are not perfect at anything and the lens that is fitted usually has a small maximum aperture e.g f5.6 or f7 which means that the whole the light goes through is quite small. The result of this is that the lens is noyt very "fast" and so is prone to camera shake during low light conditions. Also this has a knock on effect that you often have to use the flash which is usually built-in and so also not particularly good.

This issue with the small aperture also leads to another issue with these cameras. One of the most pleasing parts of a professional photograph is the "background blur". This is created by the light bending onto the sensor and really is only influenced by the aperture. The bigger the aperture (counter-intuitively, the lower f-number) the more blur is created. There is a post about depth-of-field (DOF) earlier in the blog which you can read to get you up to speed on this.

Consequently, these bridge cameras don't have as good a background blur as the DSLRs do. So if you are after something a bit more versatile and you think that you might be pursuing photography as a bit more than an occasional hobby then perhaps DSLR is what you should be looking at.

There are loads of these to choose from and it can be a bit of a minefield. I think the most useful thing I could tell you would be to take a look at either Canon or Nikon (sorry to all the Pentax / Sony users out there). Simply speaking these two are the biggest producers of DSLRs and their appropriate lenses so you have more options available with these two companies.

Entry level wise, there are plenty of options and I would suggest picking what you can afford and then going to Jessops and putting them in your hand and seeing which feels right. The body is not that important to begin with and in fact the lenses are more important. Most come with a 18-55mm kit lens and these are crap. If you can stretch to it then get something with a bit more versatility like 18-105mm and also get yourself a 50mm f1.8 which is the cheapest but one of the best lenses on the market. This will take brilliant portraits regardless of the camera body you are using.

I would also suggest that once you have found the camera body for you then try to stretch to the one above that. It's not that big a deal but for a little bit more money you might get something that's a bit more durable, has a few more features and it probably going to last you a bit longer before you have to upgrade to some else.

That's just a few thoughts that might help you decide. If you want my honest opinion as to what you should buy then get this...

http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-d5100-digital-slr-with-18-55mm-vr-lens/p1525134

or this...

http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-canon-eos-600d-digital-slr-camera-with-18-55mm-is-ii-lens/p1523926

Hope that's of use.

Z

Landscape Layers

Today on the Scottish Photography Community Facebook page there was some chat about how to fix an image where the sky was too dark after a grad had been overly used on the sky. There are several ways to do this and one of the topics that came up was layers and layer masks. Someone wanted to know how to do this so here goes (bare in mind this was a rush job that I only spent 10 mins on!)

This is the original shot out of camera. It was taken last month in the Glen Coe valley looking west towards Glen Coe Village. As you can see the sky is a bit too bright and the foreground is a bit dark. Although the previous paragraph was about a sky that was too dark, the principles here can be applied to that also.

So what I've done here is open up the RAW file and ignored the sky and processed it just paying attention to the grass and the rocks. You can see that lightening them has really screwed up the sky and there is blown highlights all over the place. Not to worry, as I'm not interested in the sky in this shot. The file was then saved like this.

Next, I opened the original shot again and processed it specifically to get a sky that I was happy with. This is the result and the image again saved as a new file.

This is the final image and it was crated using a "layer mask" in Photoshop. Basically you open the "sky" image and the "foreground" image then copy and paste one on top of the other. Then you create a layer mask on the top image. To do this make sure the top image is the one highlighted on the panel on the right and goto Layer --> Layer Mask --> Reveal All. You will see that a white panel has appeared next to the photo in the panel on the bottom right. Select a black paintbrush and start to paint over the parts of the picture that you want to "rub out".

Unlike an eraser, the picture is still there and if you make a mistake you can paint it back in by using a white paint brush. As they say "white reveals, black conceals". It takes a bit of time to get decent at this and also figuring out which layers need to be on top etc. Just play about with it and soon you will see that you can have all kinds of layers and layer masks in a single picture which really makes for some interesting results. Good luck. Z

HDR Made Simple

So this is a shot that I did in April last year. I was still right into HDR and this was my attempt at trying to copy Farbspiel's work. He truely is the master of the HDR-vertorama and an inspiration to anyone that's keen to do HDR. Also, his "vertorama" technique has allowed incredible perspectives, especially with indoor architectural shots.

My shot comprised of three shots at -2, 0 and +2 exposure values pointing straight forward then the same again at 45 degrees then finally another 3 shots with the camera pointing straight up. Each of the nine shots was then individually manipulated in Light Room. These were exported as JPEGs (sorry Farbspiel but have never got my head around TIFFs) and then each group of three was imported into Photomatix. The HDR for each section was then created resulting in 3 HDR pictures - one for the bottom, one for the middle and one for the top of the vertoram (which is essentially a vertical panorama).

The three HDR shots were then opened with Photoshop's Photomerge panorama menu which is found under the tabs --> New --> Photomerge panorama. This was set to "auto" mode and the program plays around with the three pictures and lines them up appropriately to make the final vertorama.

A few more tweaks were added in Photoshop like a bit of contrast and some levels work and finally the image layers were flattened and it was added to a black background etc. This is the result and while it's quite a cool effect but very time consuming. If this was my full time job then I could understand the necessity for this level of input but as this kind of photography for me is more of a hobby for me I simply can't justify the work required for this result.

So what is the solution for this? Surely there must be an easier way to produce something like this? Ok, I realise that any short-cut method to do this might not stand up to much scrutiny but still if it's just for fits and giggles then I don't suppose it really matters that much.

This is the alternative. This took me about 7 minutes to do. Essentially, I used only three shots in total instead of nine - one from the bottom, one from the middle and one from the top. I used the "zero" exposure shots from each series and uploaded them into Lightroom. I played about with the highlights and shadows and then added some clarity and vibrance. These were exported as JPEGs and then photomerged as above. I think at this point I had used up 3 minutes!

Next I opened Topaz Adjust in Photoshop and used the HDR filter with the "dynamic pop" selected. I adjusted the sliders for adaptive exposure and for colour / saturation and clicked "ok". 6 minutes!

Finally I added the border, the watermark and overlaid the text at the top. Total time - 7 minutes. Not bad and you can be the judge of the result. Frankly, I think that it seems to be almost the same as the one at the top. In fact, I might actually prefer it. I certainly like how little time it took to do this in comparison to the first shot which was about an hour's work. It just goes to show how easy it is to do this kind of thing now and all off these effects are very accessible to everyone.

At this point I could have a gripe about how hard it would be to make a living being a photographer mainly due to the fact that everyone has a camera nowadays and often a very good one. When people see a painting that they like they will ask the artist, "How much is that?" but when they see a photo they like they ask, "How did you do that?"

As I said, I could have a gripe... but I won't. :p

Fireworks

A work colleague has just asked me how to shoot the fireworks at the end of the Edinburgh Festival. Here was my reply...

Fireworks are a bit of a nuisance to shoot. There are several ways to do it and I think I've tried them all. Mostly it's a bit hit or miss.

The easiest and more reliable way I've found is this...

1. Make sure you are far enough away to fit the fireworks in the frame. For the ones at the Festival, the Crags is probably a good site.

2. Tripod, tripod, tripod. No exceptions.

3. Remote control helps so that you don't have to touch the camera.

4. Lock the ISO to 200 or less and DON'T leave it on auto.

5. Use shutter speed priority and scroll to about 3 - 5 seconds.

6. This lets the camera choose the aperture.

7. Manually focus on the Castle and leave the auto focus off as it gets confused in the dark.

8. Compose the shot ie Castle at the bottom of the frame. Portrait orientation is often better than landscape for fireworks. It's really just one of those things that you have to try out loads of times and see what works for you. I've even heard of people doing a 30second exposure and holding a black bit of card infront of the lens that they move out the way every time a firework goes off! Good luck Steve!

The Gingerbread House

Over the last few months I was in a bit of a funk about photography. My enthusiasm was pretty low and I didn't really know how to raise it again. So I decided that perhaps it wasn't the photography that I was bored with, but the processing. My use of photoshop / lightroom etc was pretty basic and I thought I should have a look at what I could do in post processing and see if that would pique my interest again.

Sure enough, it seemed that I was only scratching the surface of processing. The website www.500px.com was a great inspiration regarding this as a lot of the photos on that site a beautifully processed. I realise that the original shots are also excellent but the folk on that site seem to have an amazing ability to tweak every last ounce of that "something special" from their shots.

So I decided to look into doing some more processed images. Ok, so I know that what I've been doing has been a bit over-done but I'm still at the beginning of learning how to get the most out of the software so gimmie some slack ;)

Anyway, this is a shot of the "Ginger Bread House" at the East end of Princes St Gardens in Edinburgh. It's quite a nice picture and that house if very photogenic. I've photographed this a few times and it always comes out beautifully. In it's own right it's a decent photo. I like the vignette (naturally created by using the lens at it's maximum aperture) and the leading line of the path draws you into the image. Apart from a crop, I've not really done much else to this picture.

Next I opened up Topaz Adjust in Photoshop and used it's stylized presets, one of which is called "Faded Glory". I tweaked the settings slightly to get it looking a bit like a painting. Next I used a layer mask with a white background and and painted out some of the edges to cut into the picture a little bit.

Then I used a water-colour effect to make the picture even more like a painting. You can now see why I painted out some of the picture in the last shot. The water-colour filter seems to completely blot out the white parts and that gives a nice irregular outline.

This is the final image. It's been finished off with a border that I've layered underneath the picture so that it looks like the "paining" is on top. That was the reason for painting out the edges in white allowing this effect. Also I've watermarked it with the "ZK" square and also overlaid a bit of text over the upper part of the image for the title.

All in all I think it works quite well and it just goes to show you what you can do with a bit of time, some Photoshop effects and layers. It's actually quite simple and it's worth trying as it really has given me some more enthusiasm for photography again. Long may it last :p Z

Layers

I've recently been playing around with layers on Photoshop Elements 10. It's something I don't really know much about but I guess it's a way of adding creative elements to a picture. These are early trials and I promise I'll get better. Here is the original shot and by adding a layer over the picture you can add other pictures or textures on top.

I've created this by adding three layers to the original shot above. There is an image of a close up of a boulder which I've overlaid in the background. The floor is some rocks and a photo of yellow flowers overlaid over the bike. I know it's overdone but as I said, I'm not really any good at this yet but gimmie a bit of time...